<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>lights will guide you home by lettersfromnowhere</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25148737">lights will guide you home</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lettersfromnowhere/pseuds/lettersfromnowhere'>lettersfromnowhere</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Death, Doctor/Patient AU, Doomed Relationship, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Terminal Illnesses, Unrequited Love</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 03:09:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,233</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25148737</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lettersfromnowhere/pseuds/lettersfromnowhere</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>At Ba Sing Se General Hospital, Sokka's known as the designated diagnostician of utterly lost causes. If no one can figure out what's wrong with a patient...well, Sokka probably can.</p><p>Yue's the untouchable, untreatable patient, the lovely daughter of a senator who has been given every possible explanation for her mysterious illness and still isn't any closer to a diagnosis.</p><p>Suki's the surgeon and loyal best friend who's loved Sokka in silence for years.</p><p>Sokka is assigned to Yue's case when nothing else is working, and just like that, their paths cross. And as Sokka does everything he can to give Yue a fighting chance, he realizes it's more than just her life he wants to fight for...not that he ever could.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sokka &amp; Suki (Avatar), Sokka/Suki (Avatar), Sokka/Yue (Avatar)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>49</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>lights will guide you home</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I know the tags alone are probably going to give quite a few people pause, so I want to take a moment to assure you that Sokka and Yue will NOT be involved in an illicit doctor-patient relationship here. They will absolutely have feelings for each other, but they're both honorable people who wouldn't breach protocol like that. So if the idea of a doctor falling for a patient weirds you out, don't worry - nothing untoward will actually happen.</p><p>Also, you will see that obviously, Yue's disease is fictional. Though it resembles ALS, it is its own thing. I wanted to create a disease for the purposes of this story because A) I wanted to be able to take artistic liberties, B) no disease I could find matched my exact specifications, and C) I did not want to disrespect the experiences of those who are affected by such illnesses by inaccurately portraying a disease that someone reading this might actually have. Though I've never been in Yue's position, I truly hope that I treated it with the gravity it deserves.</p><p>Anyway. I honestly have no idea where this idea came from, but something convinced me to write a Sokka-Suki-Yue love triangle doctor/patient AU, so here we are.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sokka raised his eyebrows as he scanned the case file, oblivious to the endless stream of people moving around him as he studied the information he’d been given on his latest case. He had been curious about this one for a while; it was a high-profile case, one people had been champing at the bit to be given. The patient – a twenty-eight-year-old phD candidate whose father was some kind of big-shot politician – had been making the rounds of every hospital in the area, desperately searching for the diagnosis no one could give her. Three years of searching, and her illness still eluded every doctor who tried to pin it down. Sokka was next in line, hoping as he scanned her list of symptoms that he wouldn’t join that number.  </p><p><br/>Most of his colleagues seemed to be of the opinion that he wouldn’t. After a residency under a diagnostician whose outside-of-the-box methods had great success, Sokka had made a name for himself doing the same in his year of practice. He was the one to call on if absolutely every possible explanation had been exhausted, and was often referred to in cases like this one. But it still surprised him that a relatively young doctor would be assigned to a case that had gotten the best of so many doctors more experienced than he. This was an unprecedented chance, and as he swung open the door to the office where his patient was waiting, he reminded himself yet again not to squander it.</p><p> </p><p>“Hi, thanks for wai-”</p><p> </p><p>Sokka looked up from his clipboard and stopped dead in his tracks, whatever greeting he’d been about to blurt out dying on his lips.</p><p><br/>The woman seated on the exam table was perhaps the most gorgeous human being he’d ever laid eyes on.</p><p> </p><p>“Hello,” she said softly, and even her <em>voice </em>was lovely. It was so airy it was barely there and it wrapped around him like a blanket. “I’m Yue.”</p><p> </p><p>“Sok-“ he caught himself. “I mean, Dr. Taanga. Good to meet you.” He was flustered and she knew it – <em>completely </em>inappropriate, but Yue just laughed. <em>Great. Way to get off on the right foot, </em>he chastised himself. <em>You have a job to do. </em></p><p>
  
</p><p>“So, Yue,” he said, flipping through the papers on his clipboard again. “This says you’ve been unable to get a diagnosis so far?”</p><p> </p><p>“Mm-hm.” Yue nodded. “I started feeling fatigued and weak near the end of graduate school – that was three years ago – and I went to every doctor I could find, but no one could figure out why.”</p><p> </p><p>“And I understand your condition’s gotten worse since then?” he asked, tapping nervously at his clipboard with a pen as he tried to conceal how much that bothered him. He’d known Yue for all of two minutes and the idea of her in pain for so long, desperately searching for an answer no one could give her, broke his heart already.</p><p> </p><p>“Everything’s gotten harder,” she said, looking down at the floor. Her hands were folded in her lap, resting against the fabric of the periwinkle skirt she was wearing. “Walking, climbing stairs, sometimes even breathing. I haven’t been able to go for a run in a year, and I’m always exhausted.”</p><p> </p><p>“I see.” Sokka didn’t know what possessed him to go on when protocol dictated he stop at the strictly-necessary, but he couldn’t help but add, “I’m sorry.”</p><p> </p><p>Yue smiled – weary, but genuine all the same, reaching her eyes. “Thank you,” she said. “None of my doctors has ever said that before.”</p><p> </p><p>(Later, Sokka would look back and realize this was the moment he’d been a goner, but in the present, all he felt was…well, he didn’t even know what. A heady and unnamed mixture of joy and sorrow and pity and affection rushing on all at once.)</p><p> </p><p>“How many have you had?” he asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Eight in three years,” she replied miserably, and it was <em>very </em>difficult for Sokka not to do <em>something – </em>hug her, take her hand or place his hand on her arm.</p><p> </p><p>“Ninth time’s the charm?” he said, immediately wanting to stab himself for being so insensitive but…she <em>laughed. </em>It was a weak and wan thing, Yue’s laugh, but it was there nonetheless, ringing out like a far-off bell at his joke.</p><p> </p><p>“I hope so,” she said with a little more energy, and Sokka’s heart clenched.</p><p> </p><p>“I promise I’ll be your last,” he said, and they got to looking through her lab work.</p><p> </p><p>It was one he had every intention of keeping.</p><hr/><p>“Eight in three <em>years? </em>That’s <em>brutal.” </em></p><p>
  
</p><p>“Isn’t it?” Sokka looked across the table at his best friend and, selfish as it was, he was kind of glad that a burst pipe had flooded Suki’s house last week.</p><p> </p><p>Suki been crashing at his place while it was fixed – a pain and an unneeded expense, to be sure, but one that really didn’t seem to bother her much – and after meeting Yue, he’d never been more glad to have someone around to talk things out with. His life had gotten a little lonely in the past few years; after he’d moved to Ba Sing Se to complete his residency, he’d had few people to talk to. He could call his sister or his old friends back home, but he needed an actual <em>person </em>to talk to tonight…in <em>person…</em>and he was grateful for Suki. She worked in pediatric surgery, where he rarely saw her, but she had been a classmate in med school, and her company – whenever he could get it – had been the extent of his social life here. He’d had little time to make friends, let alone to date; Suki was just about it.</p><p> </p><p>And now she was <em>here, </em>and they could crash on his living room futon (he had an actual bed but he’d always wanted a futon, so he’d splurged as soon as he finished his residency) and talk things out.</p><p> </p><p>“I can’t imagine,” Suki said, playing with the fringe on one of his throw pillows. “What was she like?”</p><p> </p><p>“Resigned, almost,” Sokka said after a moment’s pause to think. “She didn’t seem sad, even though it was weighing on her. And…she laughed and smiled a lot. I didn’t expect that.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, I’d imagine that’s about all she has right now.” Suki shrugged. “Do you have any ideas as to what might be wrong?”</p><p> </p><p>“Um.” He’d hoped he wouldn’t have to talk about it, but that didn’t appear to be an option. “I have to run some tests, but…right now, it really seems like the only thing they haven’t ruled out is Sozin’s Disease.”</p><p> </p><p>Suki’s eyes widened. “Oh, no.”</p><p> </p><p>“I know.” To his credit, he truly did look miserable. Sozin’s Disease was like that – slow-acting, terminal, causing muscles to degenerate until they couldn’t sustain life anymore in agonizing slow motion. “I think the reason it kept getting misdiagnosed was that it just hadn’t been long enough. It’s kind of impossible to know if it’s Sozin’s or not until it’s been years.”</p><p> </p><p>“Advanced?” Suki asked, uncharacteristically quiet. The air tasted like sorrow as she breathed it in.</p><p> </p><p>“I can’t tell yet,” Sokka sighed. “You have no idea how much I hope I’m wrong.”</p><p> </p><p>They sat in silence for a few moments, wondering why a near-stranger’s circumstances weighed on them so much. Then Suki continued. “I do too.”  </p><p> </p><p>“She’s resigned, but…” Sokka grabbed a pillow and held it tight to his chest. “I know she’s not ready to go yet. She’s so <em>young, </em>and…not exactly lively, but she just has this…warmth. Like she couldn’t <em>possibly </em>be dying…”</p><p>“Sokka…” Suki’s voice was hard to read now, soft and full of something that could’ve been a lot of different things – sorrow or regret or warning.</p><p> </p><p>“I know,” he said miserably. “Believe me, I <em>know.” </em></p><p>
  
</p><p>“You know what’s going to happen if you fall for her,” she said gently, trying desperately to convince herself her motivations for speaking were pure. It was easy enough to convince herself that they were, even as she reached for his hand and twined her fingers through his; it was a professional risk of the highest order. She told herself <em>that </em>was why she was warning him, and she almost believed it.</p><p><br/>“Who said anything about falling for her?”</p><p> </p><p>“You did, Sokka,” Suki sighed. Now it was easy to read her voice – sadness, undistilled. “It’s all over your face.”</p><p> </p><p>“I know that I can’t do that,” Sokka replied. “Don’t worry, Suki. I would never take a risk like that.”</p><p> </p><p>“Maybe you wouldn’t act on it,” she said, standing up and suddenly feeling like the room was too small for the both of them. “But you can’t control how you feel.”</p><p> </p><p>“I can try!” he called after her, and she paused in the doorway, turning back to face him.</p><p> </p><p>“The heart wants what it wants, Sokka.”</p><p> </p><p>She didn’t stay to watch his expression change.</p><hr/><p>“Anything unusual?”</p><p> </p><p>Yue peered over Sokka’s shoulder, almost knocking into him as she tried to get a look at the computer screen where he was scanning through her test results. He had to press his eyes shut for a moment at the gesture and the simple <em>need </em>it showed, the need for answers, to <em>know </em>after so long. He could tell she was reading the results of her lab work, too, hoping there wouldn’t be anything suspect in it.</p><p> </p><p>Sokka, though, hoped there <em>would, </em>because a wonky blood test – a level of something that wasn’t quite right, a compound in the blood that shouldn’t have been – would mean he was wrong. It would rule out the diagnosis he’d been dreading since he met Yue.</p><p> </p><p>But his instincts hadn’t steered him wrong, if the bloodwork was an indication. It was clean, and swallowing his correct guess felt like drinking vinegar. “Nope, all good on the bloodwork,” he told her, trying too hard not to sound as shaken as he felt. “So that rules out a few of the possible diagnoses. But I’m sure you already knew that.”</p><p> </p><p>She nodded. “I’ve had so many blood tests now that my arm has a permanent spot from it.” Yue turned to him, lifting her sleeve to show Sokka the spot on her shoulder where a red indentation had formed, and his breath caught in his throat.</p><p>He wasn’t sure if it was because of the horrifying realization of how much futile suffering Yue had endured in search of a cure she could never find, or because she was always so willing to share with someone she really only knew in a professional capacity, or because of the exposed skin, but-</p><p> </p><p><em>Sokka, get it together! </em>He admonished himself, and he did – sort of – before he turned back to her. “Obviously, none of these tests show anything unusual, so we’re going to have to try some other ones,” he explained, his face falling as hers did. “I know. I’m so sorry.”</p><p> </p><p>“No, it’s okay,” she said, clearly lying. “I’m used to this.”</p><p> </p><p>“You shouldn’t have to be,” Sokka muttered, unsure whether he wanted her to hear him or not. “I’m going to order an EMG test for you.”</p><p> </p><p>“Okay,” she said, quiet and resigned. “What’s that test for?”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s, uh, electromyography. How well your nerves conduct signals,” he said, wondering how to explain it in layman’s terms the whole time. “With…electricity.”</p><p> </p><p>Even for someone as used to pain as she was, Yue looked startled. “Electricity? Isn’t that painful?”</p><p> </p><p>He wished he could lie. “A little,” he admitted. “But it’s not as bad as anyone thinks it is.”</p><p> </p><p>“Of course it’s not.” She looked exhausted now. “It never is.”</p><p> </p><p>(She called him, later that week when she got her results back, and he wanted to tell her so much more than what they meant, but he didn’t. Wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Would never and everyone knew it.</p><p> </p><p>And he wondered why, why, <em>why </em>his highest-profile patient had to be the one slowly dying in full public view, the one too young to go and too old for her own age, the one with eyes like the sea and a face like home.</p><p> </p><p>He wondered why he had started to fall for her, and at the same time he didn’t wonder at all.)</p><hr/><p>It had been two months and Suki’s house was no longer flooded by the night he finally had to give Yue her final diagnosis. Nevertheless, she was on his doorstep with a large Meat Lover’s pizza within an hour of her shift’s ending.</p><p> </p><p>He hadn’t been expecting her, but he was grateful she’d come, and the moment she set down the pizza box she threw her arms around him and held on tight. “I’m so, so sorry,” she murmured against his shirt, and all he could do was hold on, because part of him had known what he’d eventually have to tell Yue since the day they’d met but saying it like this made it feel so…<em>final. </em></p><p> </p><p>“Thanks, Suki,” he said, his voice groggy with emotion.</p><p> </p><p>She let go then, flopping down on his futon and grabbing herself a slice of pizza. (She was here for his comfort, of course, but she was also <em>starving.) </em>“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.</p><p> </p><p>(That was a rather pointless question – Sokka <em>always </em>wanted to talk about it – but she figured it would be wrong not to ask.)</p><p> </p><p>“I think she kind of already knew,” he said, taking a seat beside her. He didn’t even touch the pizza, which let Suki know he was worse-off than he claimed to be. “I mean, not that it was Sozin’s Disease, but…” he hangs his head. “That there was no coming back from whatever she did have.”</p><p> </p><p>“How did she take it?” Suki asked, angling herself to face him even though he wouldn’t look at her or…well, anything.</p><p> </p><p>“Same as usual.” He leaned against the couch as if he no longer had the strength to hold himself up. “Just kind of…defeated. Like she’d already given up the fight.” She could see him ball his hand into a fist even as he tried to hide it. “I <em>hate </em>that, Suki. I <em>know </em>why she’d feel that way after spending so much time getting hopeless answers, but I <em>hate </em>that she doesn’t see why she can’t give up. I hate that I’m not allowed to help her see that!” He slammed his fist against the wooden coffee table in front of them, barely recoiling at the impact. “I hate protocol, and I hate that being her doctor means I can’t be her <em>friend </em>when she needs one, and I hate…” he took in a long, shuddery breath and then exploded. “And I hate that <em>she </em>was the one I had to fall for!”</p><p> </p><p>Hearing those words felt like all of the air being sucked out of Suki’s lungs, and her vision blurred, and she wanted to do a million things she couldn’t. <em>You’re here for Sokka. This is about him and it’s about Yue and it’s </em>not <em>about you! </em>She tried to tell herself, but the words barely registered. Not when she’d spent four years loving her best friend in silence only to lose him to a woman whom protocol and life itself dictated he could not have.</p><p> </p><p>It was truly ironic, she realized when he fell into her arms and cried for all the times he couldn’t before, that she could have him because he, too, wanted someone he couldn’t have.</p><hr/><p>Sokka had few reasons to see Yue in the following months; her diagnosis was done and his job was over – end of story, at least on paper. But it wasn’t hard to figure out how to see her when no one ever bat an eyelash at his presence in the room of his – technically – patient, especially not now that she was here permanently.</p><p> </p><p><em>Permanently. </em>The word left a nasty taste in his mouth.</p><p> </p><p>She asked him to walk with her the first time he visited after she was moved in. Her muscles were going fast, and she wanted to talk while she still could; and so, leaning on his arm, she strolled through the halls with her.</p><p><br/>He caught her when she stumbled, listened to her talk about the political science phD she’d never complete and the movies she’d watched recently and how much she’d always wanted a home aquarium. (He nearly bought her a goldfish to keep in a bowl on her nightstand after that, but he figured it would be inappropriate.) And she asked him questions, too, as they paced the linoleum halls – where he’d come from and gone to college, what his family and friends were like. He told her all about Katara and Gran-Gran, how close they’d always been, and shared stories about his high school years with Zuko and Aang and Toph when she seemed interested. She loved those, always smiling at the thought of a younger Sokka getting into all kinds of scrapes.</p><p> </p><p>He told her about Suki, too, but it felt…almost wrong to talk about her here, for reasons he couldn’t explain. All he really knew was that telling Yue how she’d held him when he didn’t know what to do about the beautiful, doomed woman he’d been assigned to diagnose didn’t seem right.</p><p> </p><p>They made twelve laps of the floor that night, Sokka catching Yue when she stumbled and Yue clinging to Sokka like she is shipwrecked and he is a life preserver. And he wished he could kiss her under the fluorescent lights, but he knew he never could.</p><p> </p><p>He would have to make a lifetime out of a single night.</p><hr/><p>It took six more months – March to September – for Sozin’s Disease to get the best of Yue.</p><p> </p><p>Six months of visits. Three months of pacing the floors while she still could, then three in which all she could do was be pushed through the halls in a wheelchair – Sokka gladly did both. Six months of stories and movie reviews and arguments (Yue was a cereal-before-milk person, Sokka the opposite); six months to remember the day Yue wrapped her arms around him in gratitude after a long visit in spite of every argument against it; six months to fall for someone who faded every day; six months of breaking down with Suki every time he saw her because only she could ever understand.</p><p> </p><p>They were the best and most painful six months of his life.</p><p> </p><p>In the end, he wasn’t invited to her funeral, and really, he couldn’t blame her family no matter how much he’d wanted to be there. He was nothing more in their eyes than the ninth in a chain of doctors who’d tried to help their daughter and was given only marginal credit for having succeeded in diagnosing her where all others failed. He knew this. He knew he wasn’t ever meant to be more than her diagnostician but he wished he could have done more. And he didn’t think he’d ever stop regretting the fact that he couldn’t.  </p><p> </p><p>Suki knew this, and though she felt hollow at the thought of the connection they’d forged out of so little time with so many restrictions, she bit her tongue and told herself she’d do whatever it took.</p><p> </p><p>She spent the night at his house the day after it happened. He hadn’t asked, but he hadn’t needed to – she knew he needed people, not space, when life was truly storming. And though she loved him, she made herself available to be hurt by the knowledge that he’d loved another as many times as it took to heal his grief.</p><p> </p><p>(They fell asleep huddled together on the futon that night, both crying, both trying in vain to comfort the other with strength they didn’t have. Though she finally, <em>finally </em>slept in Sokka’s arms, it was perhaps the worst night of Suki’s life.)</p><p> </p><p>Sokka didn’t think he’d ever feel whole again. But he found soon enough that though one life had ended, the rest had to carry on without it.</p><p> </p><p>And so he did.</p><p> </p><p>He diagnosed, he stretched the limits of his thinking to figure out what exactly afflicted his patients just as he was known for. He made it home for Christmas and the comfort of family and old friends who somehow <em>knew </em>something had changed (Katara knew the whole story, of course, but the rest did not) and did their best to lift his spirits. He rang in the New Year with Suki, on his futon, watching an all-day New Year’s Eve marathon of cornball alien-themed movies on SyFy because there really was nothing better to do.</p><p> </p><p>(He thought about kissing her come midnight and wondered where that came from, what had made him think such a thing when Yue was still so fresh in his mind.)</p><p> </p><p>He thought of her often, still, but by February, he could say her name without feeling like he was going to be sick with the unfairness of it all.</p><p> </p><p>March 11<sup>th</sup> marked a year since their meeting, and he didn’t even have to think about it to know that Suki would be at his door that night. She was – this time she had a carton of Half Baked in hand, and she’d never been a more welcome sight.</p><p> </p><p>“You really don’t have to keep doing this,” Sokka lied, rather hoping she’d sense just how deeply he hoped she would. “You’re always busy-“</p><p> </p><p>“I am <em>never </em>too busy for you, Sokka,” she admonished, and he realized how true it was, how-</p><p> </p><p>“You’re too good to me,” he blurted out, and kissed her cheek with lips still partly coated in ice cream. She laughed, but he didn’t miss the stiff blush that rose in her cheeks-</p><p> </p><p>Oh.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Oh. </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>It all made sense, and it felt to Sokka like being hit with a van full of bricks. “I’m so <em>sorry,” </em>he blurted out, horrified and elated all at once. “Suki, I had <em>no </em>idea, and I would <em>never </em>have…if…if I realized…” he buried his face in his hands. “You’ve always been here for me, and I’ve barely done <em>anything </em>for you, and I repay you by…by…”</p><p> </p><p>“Sokka, hey.” Suki rapped his shoulder with her spoon. “It’s okay…whatever it is. But are <em>you?”</em></p><p>
  
</p><p>He didn’t respond to that. He just looked at her – intent, studious, searching, as if analyzing her eyes and not just looking into them – and then something changed in his face that she couldn’t quite quantify.</p><p> </p><p>(He saw her with entirely new eyes in that moment, but she couldn’t have known that.)</p><p> </p><p>They were silent, gazes locked on each other from opposite ends of the futon, neither daring to move. But while Suki’s face grew more and more concerned with each passing moment, Sokka’s opened, warmed, softened, and he watched her as if for the first time. She swallowed a lump in her throat and finally broke the unbearable silence.</p><p> </p><p>“Sokka,” she said, her voice wavering, “why are you looking at me like that?”</p><p> </p><p>“I can’t believe I didn’t see it,” was all he managed to say before closing the distance across the futon (well…more like <em>diving </em>across the futon in his desperation to get to Suki on the other side, nearly knocking her off in the process). She wondered what exactly he thought he was doing for a moment, but then he managed to get himself upright and marginally composed and not five seconds later his lips were on hers.</p><p><br/>Suki didn’t know how to respond at first because…well, it was the <em>last </em>way she’d expected this night to end. But she <em>wanted </em>this, she realized, and she returned the kiss for all she was worth. She’d wanted this at twenty-three when she’d met him in med school, wanted this when they’d spend late nights eating ramen and commiserating over tests, wanted this at twenty-seven when they’d attended his sister’s wedding to a childhood friend of theirs and Sokka had attempted to sing his best man speech before Katara had talked him out of it, wanted this at twenty-nine when their residences were done, wanted this at thirty when a burst pipe felt like divine providence.</p><p> </p><p>Wanted this now, after the worst year of their lives.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t deserve you, Suki,” he panted when they finally broke apart for air, “but…if you want me, I-“</p><p> </p><p>She cut him off with another kiss the moment she’d caught her breath and, when they broke off a moment later, met his eyes and replied. “I’ve wanted this for <em>ages, </em>idiot,” she told him, and he looked a little more astounded than he needed to, and <em>nothing </em>felt real but <em>everything </em>felt right.</p><p> </p><p>She knew she’d never be Yue, that their story would never be one of love at first sight, but she couldn’t find it within herself to let that bother her anymore. <em>This…</em>whatever they had…was made, engineered with time and built to last, a reaction reaching equilibrium. It was not fairytale romance; she would never be his first and only love, never be the source of first-sight infatuation. But they’d seen what they could be, and made it together through thick and thin, and maybe – if she let herself hope a little – they’d keep on making it.</p><p> </p><p>Maybe that was what he’d meant when he’d said all those months ago that life, though it ended, carried on.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Um. I'm sorry?</p><p>This is my first time attempting ATLA fic that isn't Zutara-centric, so I hope I did okay.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>